Do we really need EJB?
Alexander Krastev, John E. Galletly · 2003
This paper, which is a compilation of the experiences of a number of software developers, is an attempt to guard the software community against the pitfalls of the EJB technology. It presents an anthology of experience that might help application developers realize when they are over-engineering their solution when the signs point to a different approach, probably to a different technology. We will start by juxtaposing the commonly agreed on advantages and disadvantages of the EJB architecture. Then we will see how some of the alleged advantages might turn out to possess a certain downside, in the sense that they might lead to solutions that, for reasons implicit in the EJB ideology, are far from efficient. On the basis of all that, we will try to distil rules of thumb about the situations for which the EJB paradigm is suitable and the ones in which it is to be avoided. We will complete the paper with our personal opinion about the viability of the EJB technology in the software arena as well as the prospects for this technology to find place in the applications of the near future.